Oh, Reuters, with this rubbish, you are spoiling us! Chris Taylor’s Your Money: The “Apple Tax” – America’s costly obsession once again showcases how many writers shouldn’t be let near an Apple article unless wired up to a BLAZING KLAXON that near deafens them when they write something stupid.

For example:

With the “fiscal cliff” looming, taxpayers are wringing their hands about all sorts of things. Income taxes might rise, dividends might get walloped, lifetime gift-tax exemptions might get slashed. But when it comes to immediate impact on their wallets, maybe they should be thinking about something else entirely: The Apple tax.

BLAZING KLAXON!

You see how this could work? It would be great. At that point, Taylor would be rolling around on the floor, suitably chastised, and the article would be mercifully short. People would mention how strange it was that Reuters had put out such a succinct article, but perhaps they’d consider it an amusing joke of some sort—an ironic nod to the many articles online that don’t know what they’re talking about and so bang on about inaccuracies when it comes to Apple.

Unfortunately, this article subsequently becomes one that doesn’t know what it’s talking about and so bangs on about inaccuracies when it comes to Apple.

Americans are shelling out big bucks annually to outfit the entire household with Apple products. And they are spending hundreds—if not thousands of dollars—more each year for the unexpected Apple “taxes”—add-ons that lock them into the Apple system: iTunes downloads for music, movies and games, along with subscriptions and accessories.

BLAZING KLAXON!

In what way are these things taxes? Last I knew, Apple didn’t demand you pay for anything extra. Music can be grabbed from anywhere. Movies can be digitised from your collection and loaded into various apps, and many such apps and games are free.

Then there are the replacement costs for lost or broken equipment.

BLAZING KLAXON!

How is this an Apple thing? Does Samsung give you free stuff if your kit breaks? For that matter, does the company that made your TV, your fridge or your car? If you lose your bike, would you get another for free from the shop you bought it from? Of course bloody not.

 For a family with multiple children, each with their own technological needs, the total annual bill can get downright ugly—like going over a familial “fiscal cliff.”

BLAZING KLAXON!

Inappropriate analogy with massive economic problems that aren’t actually remotely similar to buying Apple kit at all!

The article then abruptly shifts to a human interest angle. Sam Martorana is a human-resources specialist for the airline WestJet, and he likes Apple products! He gets all upset when asked to tot up what his family has spent on Apple goods, thereby showcasing how terribly expensive it all is! Naturally, there’s no context. We don’t know if his family can easily afford such goods, nor what they spend on anything else, nor the benefits these products bring to the family’s life. Perhaps, for example, the kids happily play free or cheap iOS games, versus the family having to splash out 40 bucks on cartridges for other consoles. Perhaps the family uses the devices for education or as replacements for other goods that might have cost money. We just don’t know.

Taylor notes that the technology figure has been rising. He states the average household in the US now spends $444 per year on Apple products, up from $295 in 2010, and $150 in 2007, ignoring inflation, market changes, and so on. Still, luckily, he doesn’t then go nuts and embrace the rumour mill, in order to make the upcoming Apple spending figure (and thereby the trend) look even worse. Oh, my mistake—he does precisely that.

And we might only be seeing the beginning. If Apple rolls out its own HDTV, as expected, Huberty sees annual Apple spending by households doubling, to $888 by 2015.

BLAZING KLAXON!

That one was for including an Apple TV rumour.

And then it gets even worse:

The analogy of an Apple tax might sound facetious, but think about it. Median U.S. household income was $50,054 in 2011, according to the Census Bureau. That means a sizable chunk of that is getting diverted to Apple headquarters in Cupertino.

BLAZING KLAXON!

Remember, this is not something that consumers are being forced to pay. They are dipping willingly into their own pockets, because they’re essentially slaves to the devices.

BLAZING KLAXON!

People buy things because they need them and/or because they like them and/or because they think the items will benefit their lives in some way. That Apple is selling far more kit these days appears to be a combination of factors, but to argue people are slaves to their devices or that there’s some kind of ‘tax’ in play is idiotic. (Frankly, I’m surprised the Reuters pieces managed to steer clear of the ‘cult’ or ‘religion’ themes most end up going on about when it comes to Apple.)

What’s true is that technology is clearly becoming far more prevalent, and that’s in part down to Apple. Families are spending more on certain goods, and this is a trend that’s worthy of investigation. But for such things, we need context. We need more than just yet another link-baity hook, trying to blame Apple for something, rolling out some pointless quotes, using charged phrases like “I’m definitely an addict”. That kind of thing helps no-one and simply plays into shoring up certain stereotypes that were tiresome a decade ago, let alone today.

Expected behaviour is an important aspect of software design. iTunes has often been criticised for having a sync system that’s opaque and too readily insistent on deleting data. Apple’s dialog boxes rarely help, providing warnings that are indecipherable, even to people who’ve written about the company for years.

One of the biggest criticisms about iOS has been the manner in which apps are removed from a device during a sync if they’re no longer in iTunes, which of course takes app data with it. “Boom,” as Steve Jobs would have once said. However, this action through to iTunes 10 did at least provide the means to ‘rescue’ such apps, with the dialog box pictured below. The text within notes that purchased items are on a device, but not present in the iTunes Library. You get two options: Transfer copies the items back to iTunes; Don’t Transfer deletes them from the device.

Curiously, iTunes 11 leaves the dialog box in place but also does not—with my hardware—perform the Don’t Transfer action. Space is seemingly made on the device, ready for deleting various apps, but the deletion then does not occur. I’ve no idea if this is a bug or intentional. In a sense, having iTunes now work like this could be a good thing—less chance of accidentally removing an app through having deleted it in iTunes. The dialog box, though, suggests it’s another bug—one of many I’ve found in iTunes 11 now I’ve been using it for a while. From a personal standpoint, I’d quite like Don’t Transfer working again, because I used it for app management—it’s much faster to remove a few dozen apps from a device by deleting them from iTunes and doing a sync than by zapping them one at a time on the iOS device itself.

Update: As of iTunes 11.0.1, I’m finding that this dialog box no longer appears. It looks like the bug here was therefore the dialog box and not the syncing, and the app-removal feature has itself been removed. As per the article, I’m in two minds about this: for me, this will make app management harder, but for the general punter, it doesn’t really make sense to remove an app from a device if it’s not in the iTunes library on their PC or Mac. Also, it looks like the system has some intelligence—when I was playing around with it earlier today, it transfers to the computer updated apps that are in the library but not apps that aren’t.

If you’ve been reading Revert to Saved over the past week or so, you’ll know I’ve been releasing music again, for the first time in a long while. Now, hot on the heels of singles Betrayed and Fever comes Listen To Me, my first new album in (gulp) seven years.

I’ve never been much cop at marketing—I’ve in my time written a lot of songs but never really known what to do with them, bar giving long-suffering friends yet more tapes/CDRs. Now, though, the web’s gotten to the point where it’s astonishingly easy to get music out there. I’ve been hugely impressed with Bandcamp when buying albums from the likes of 4mat and Chipzel, and so I figured I’d give that site a go myself.

On my new album, there are 15 tracks in all, and I’ve gone for a ‘couple of cheap pints’ as the price tag (four quid). Tracks can be downloaded in MP3, FLAC or “just about any other format you could possibly desire”, according to Bandcamp—and streaming is free.

Music’s for me one of those oddly personal things—probably more so than much of the writing I do—and it’s therefore quite odd after so much time to see it finally out there, away from the confines of my computer and my own ears. I am, however, really excited about the album and proud of it, and so I very much hope you enjoy Listen To Me.

(And regular readers, don’t worry—I’m sure I’ll be back to grumbling about all things tech next week!)

Last week, I released my first new music in a number of years, and I’ve today followed this up with a second ‘single’, Fever. A journo chum of mine said:

I could easily have been dancing to that at a nightclub in Hull circa 1981. Catchy riff as well.

So make of that what you will. As with my previous release, this one’s currently using Bandcamp’s ‘pay what you want’ model, so you can grab it for free if you like. The Project Noise website has also had an overhaul, as has this one—what a pity none of this stuff is a paying gig!

Anyway, please enjoy the new music. More coming later this week, in the form of the 15-track album, Listen To Me.

If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you might correctly surmise that I spend the bulk of my time immersed in technology, mostly writing about it (and, often, complaining about it). But time was I tended to be rather prolific when it came to music. Earlier this year, I realised it was 2005 when I released my last album, and I decided to ensure I got my new one (in progress for a long time) out the door by the end of the year.

It looks like I’m just going to squeak that deadline, and I’m very happy and proud to say the first fruits of said labour are now live, in the form of Betrayed, a free single you can download from my new Bandcamp page. There’s also a freebie remix of the track lurking.

To grab the single, click/tap ‘Buy now’, name your price (from zero, but if any rich eccentrics are out there and want to fund the next album, feel free!), and you’ll get lovely 320 kbps MP3s fired across the internet to your downloads folder. Next week, another single and a new 15-track album. And with a following wind, especially if I manage to sell the odd album or two, more music should follow rather more quickly next time round!

(Also, there’s currently an additional ‘preview’ track, Up For Hire, available for free via the Project Noise website. Grab that soon, though, because the site will be updated when the album goes live.)